Living in the Moment (while going down memory lane) April 2009

Years ago, when I first started scrapping, my oldest daughter was just one year old.Scrapbooking was a new phenomenon, and we learned to quit using those “magnetic” photo albums that were slowly sucking the life out of our photos.In those beginning years, what I really took out of my scrapbooking sessions with my friends was the social aspect and the creative outlet.

A year later, I became pregnant with my second child.Unlike many women I experienced evening sickness and all day nausea pretty much throughout my pregnancy.After the first month of suspicion that continuous nausea isn’t some stomach bug and then joy that I am pregnant, pregnancy hits me like the 9-month flu.I quit scrapping and just rejoiced in making it through every day growing a baby and keeping after a 2- year old.My scrapping went by the wayside during my pregnancy.

After my second daughter was born and I began to get used to having two small children (what did I ever do when I had only one?), all the while snapping pictures, I began to attempt to get back to scrapping with my friends again.By that time “the group” had started to disperse because of additional children, job acquisitions or job changes and the monthly scrapping started to become bi-monthly, then every three months, then every six, until it petered out.Being busy with my little girls, I really didn’t notice.

It seemed very suddenly when I realized I was five years behind.By then I had hooked up with a gal who was a direct sales consultant for a scrapbooking company and I was back to monthly scrapbooking sessions.Scrapbooking stores were appearing and it became all the rage to scrap.I was five years behind.I had a lot of catching up to do.Although the company promoted “staying current” on your photos, I felt the need to catch up before I could stay current.I did not have much occasion to scrap at home; I felt I could only scrap with friends, I couldn’t possibly do it alone.But going back and trying to catch up somehow felt demoralizing; because for every roll of film I scrapped, I had shot a new roll of film.

One day, I was looking at some of my earliest scrapbooks and realized how much my kids had grown (not to mention cringing over my early scrapbooking designs).It hit me so hard that for every picture I had to remember because it had been so long ago, I was letting a new, fresh picture slip away from my memory.I realized I had been punishing myself for not being caught up by not letting myself scrap current pictures.But my kids continued to grow up, they continued to change; they weren’t waiting for me to be caught up in my scrapping.If part of my scrapping was to catch the memories of my family, I was doing a disservice to them by not scrapping what was happening right now.

So I began to live in the moment.I am a chronological scrapper, and I was behind five years.You cannot imagine the relief I felt by allowing myself to scrap every moment shortly after it happened.Not only did I have relief, but I also had joy because I could immediately relive the experience right after it happened and exactly as it happened.

For some reason, staying in the moment freed up time.I think it was time I spent agonizing over lost memories.Once I was current, I began to go back.I began to take a fresh look at lost memories and accepted it was okay as I remembered them.I also came to understand that not every page needs to have a catchy theme, but every page needs to capture the essence of the child and the event.Plus, little children really don’t “do” anything, they are just cute.I learned to enhance their cuteness and move on.In a year and a half I caught up those five years.I scrapped in front of the T.V. at home, because frankly, you don’t actually have to look at most shows to get the point of them.

Mostly, I enjoyed every minute of going through my children’s childhoods, because I had freed myself and treated myself by knowing I wasn’t losing the “now.”I was living in the moment and going down memory lane at my leisure.